{"id":1053,"date":"2018-03-11T04:02:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T04:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/technologyforyou.org\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2018-03-11T04:04:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-11T04:04:08","slug":"live-learn-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/live-learn-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Live – Learn – Lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Live – Learn – Lead\u00a0 : \u00a0Bhaktipriya Sridhar<\/strong><\/p>\n

IIIT-Hyderabad research student successfully completes Undergraduate Special Student Program at MIT<\/p>\n

Hyderabad :\u00a0 Final year B.Tech (Hons) student Bhaktipriya Sridhar Radharapu maintains a detailed blog page. The listing of her awards and the projects she has been involved with is in itself mighty impressive. And a conversation with her in person is like a breath of fresh air.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to admire this eloquent and confident 21-year-old when she talks animatedly about her journey so far. Back from a semester at MIT as a special student where she learned Cognitive Science and Computation, she\u2019s brimming with ideas and talks of a world where she \u201c..would want AI to augment human intelligence so it can assist us, to make things easier, especially where it can get mechanical…in areas like healthcare, and cyber security.\u201d But wait, let\u2019s pause and rewind a bit.<\/p>\n

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The Early Years<\/strong><\/p>\n

After high school, what next? When others are confused and seemingly at the crossroads, Bhakti was crystal clear in her academic goals. Having enjoyed her initial exposure to coding in high school, it seemed natural that she wanted to pursue it further. Despite getting accepted at other international universities, some with scholarship too, she chose IIIT-H. \u201cI was hesitant..\u201d, she says, talking about the other academic offers of acceptance. Like most other technological institutes, they too had mandatory institute-level requirements like Physics, Chemistry, among others. \u201cI thought..If I know what I want to major in, why should I spend an entire academic year learning stuff that I\u2019ve already done in high school? And that does not happen in IIIT-Hyderabad. In fact it\u2019s the best part of their curriculum\u201d. She had done her thorough research on the curriculum and academic atmosphere at IIIT-H. It wasn\u2019t a tough decision after that.<\/p>\n

Summers at IIITH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hyderabad<\/em><\/p>\n

Since she was keen on academic research, she signed up for the Honours program where one gets extra 4 credits per semester for research. \u00a0In the summer of the second year, one that she describes as \u201ccrazy\u201d, she juggled between two internships – a full-time one at Google Hyderabad with the Apps for Work team and a remote internship (after work hours and over weekends) at the Linux Kernel. Being passionate about open source (she\u2019s a certified Linux hacker too), she had applied for and been selected out of 5 others in the world for a programming project, under the Outreachy internship program. This program \u00a0\u201cprovides three-month internships for people from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech\u201d. Between the two internships Bhakti had to squeeze in some mandatory courses for the Honours program at CVIT too!<\/p>\n

CVIT<\/em><\/p>\n

Under the mentorship of Prof. C.V. Jawahar, Bhakti has been instrumental in helping build assistive technologies for the visually impaired and the deaf. For this, she built a smart helmet, with a smart phone mounted on top and cameras on the sides. It can help in guiding the visually impaired for navigation by detecting physical obstacles, \u201c..The device can also take in the video feed of someone doing sign language and convert that into speech\u201d, she explains.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Paris<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite being offered an internship at Google the next summer as well, Bhakti chose to focus more on research. This time, opting for an internship at le CNAM (Centre d\u2019etudes et de recherche en informatique et communications), Paris. Working under Prof. Nicholas Thome on Deep Learning and Semantic Segmentation, she says, \u201c..with Computer Vision and AI techniques, we developed a model whereby looking at 3D scans of patients, one can diagnose and detect the exact location of cancer\u201d. It is this type of practical application of AI that intrigues her.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts<\/em><\/p>\n

Driven by the research bug, and having gained enough exposure both at IIITH, as well as at Paris, Bhakti applied for the Undergraduate Special Student Program at MIT. The unique feature about this program is that it is open to undergrads across the world. Selected students get to spend a semester at MIT and take classes like regular MIT students. They alsoenjoy most of the benefits that all students have which includes access to all of the academic facilities, student support services, recreational activities and student clubs. Bhakti signed up with the largest on-campus laboratory, the CSAIL – Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. And had the great fortune to work with Josh Tenenbaum, professor of Cognitive Science and Computation. \u201cI had just read his paper and then there he was …teaching my class…It was so overwhelming!\u201d, she gushes. Her project was an independent study on \u00a0\u201cHierarchical perception of motion\u201d or simplistically, enabling computers to see things in motion the way humans do. Incidentally Prof. Tenenbaum\u2019s new initiative, aimed at producing better AI – \u2018MIT Intelligence Quest\u2019 – has been in the recent news. Bhakti also got the opportunity to teach as a teaching assistant (TA) for a Deep Learning course. The courses she opted for were in fact graduate-level courses. No mean feat given that the MIT Special Student Admissions page cautions prospective candidates that the program is extremely independent and that special students receive minimal academic advising.<\/p>\n

Lean In<\/strong><\/p>\n

There has been a conscious movement across industries and other sectors towards gender inclusiveness and equality. Technology especially has seen a significant push in this direction with women and girls being encouraged to participate in and be represented in industry. What led her to become the founder of the Lean In, Hyderabad chapter? \u00a0She looks back on the Outreachy internship, musing, \u201cthe experience helped me a lot, the exposure through conferences where I got to meet so many people, develop contacts and network\u201d. \u00a0She wanted something similar for the other girls and was surprised to know that a lot of them weren\u2019t aware of such opportunities, that are especially available for women and other underrepresented communities. Feeling the need for a forum where there is regular peer-to-peer encouragement, Bhakti kickstarted the chapter at IIIT and invited her mentors to speak on areas like OpenSource, Industry, Leadership, and Research. They even had a special session where their Seniors were invited to speak on their experiences on industry and academic internships. She says that post the meet, there was a significant spurt in the number of applications from girls towards these avenues.<\/p>\n

Conferences<\/strong><\/p>\n

Getting invited to international conferences is a natural offshoot of being a young, bright spark. One of the most notable conferences Bhakti has participated in includes the LinuxCon 2016 in Toronto, with 15,000 attendees, where she was not only the youngest speaker but also the youngest Outreachy Panel Member. She was also the recipient of The Grace Hopper Scholarship India 2016 and presented a talk about OpenSource at The Grace Hopper conference. More recently, she was a member of a panel at The IEEE Women In Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC) 2017 in San Jose, California. \u201cSome of my co-speakers at these conferences included Jeff Dean, the current leader of AI at Google, and Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux\u201d, she says matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n

Peek Into The Personal Side<\/strong><\/p>\n

Has there been a single person or a book or an idea that is the source of her inspiration? \u201cMy mother\u201d, she shoots back. When prodded to reveal more, she relates not without pride of how her mother is a child psychologist by profession. A youth exchange scholar from India to the US herself, Bhakti\u2019s mother has been the recipient of the Presidential Academic Fitness Award by President George Bush. \u201cMy mom is my role model. She inspires me to learn, live and lead every day\u201d,<\/p>\n

While all her other achievements are in the limelight, Bhakti\u2019s singing prowess is relatively unknown. \u201cI love to sing!\u201d, she laughs. In fact, she is currently studying Carnatic music under the accomplished Prof. Saroja of the Humanities department at IIIT. An avid chess player too. Bhakti reveals that she was a national level player in Kuwait and at IIIT in the first year, represented Telangana to win a bronze medal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What Next? \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to explore the industry a bit more and apply whatever I\u2019ve learned so far..I\u2019m interviewing with some companies that do Applied AI, and some R&D labs..\u201d, she trails off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Live – Learn – Lead\u00a0 : \u00a0Bhaktipriya Sridhar IIIT-Hyderabad research student successfully completes Undergraduate Special Student Program at MIT Hyderabad :\u00a0 Final year B.Tech (Hons) student Bhaktipriya Sridhar Radharapu maintains a detailed blog page. The listing of her awards and the projects she has been involved with is in itself mighty impressive. And a conversation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-careers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}